Grades

Conditions of Flow for Readers

A Clear Purpose and Immediate Feedback: Our boys wanted to know why they were reading and how what they learned would be used. They wanted continuous feedback about how they were doing in approaching the goal.

An Appropriate Challenge and Assistance to Meet it: The boys wanted challenging content that changed how they thought or helped them to do things better. They wanted enough help to succeed, but only when they needed it.

Functionality and a Developing Sense of Competence: They wanted to use what they had read to talk, do, or make something that explicitly showed their growing competence.

A Focus on the Immediate Experience: Reading needed to be personally relevant and socially significant in "the here and now." The boys rejected reading that prepared them for a test or for some endeavor in the far-off future (e.g. "you'll need to know this when you get to high school").

The Importance of Being Social: The boys all wanted to work together and to share their learning. They wanted what they learned to have a social or service value.